Comprehensive List of Flaws of the Nintendo Switch

As I'm still undecided about buying the Switch, I dig around the web and decided to make a list of things that are keeping me away from dropping money, feel free to add upon them.

.1. charge cable at the bottom

• no charging in tabletop mode without quite pricey (20 €) bulky extra equipment or digging a hole into your desk/table/whatever

• awkward charging while in handheld mode when trying to rest by e. g. putting the switch on your blanket with the potential of ruining the power charge by bending it (I ruined a lot of USB chargers of my phone this way.)

.2. battery being a big limiting factor

• quite short time until you have to charge again, the same way as the old 3DS (which was heavily criticised for it) and the old 3DS at least has the charge cable at the top

• GPU has to be underclocked for battery uptime.

• Joy-Cons are only allowed to use very little amount of power, leading to wireless connectivity problems and thus unresponsiveness when e. g. holding the Joy-Con for tabletop mode behind your blanket.

.3. no D-pad

• lacking support for new and old 2d titles, especially hindering the success of virtual console without buying another specialized Joy-Con with a D-pad if it releases one day for around 50 €

.4. lacking hardware power

• While BotW looks like a very very promising game as a whole, we can't deny that the render distance and texture quality is both on the very low end. This quite heavily hinders the immersion in this new awesome vast world (especially when things like rocks, grass or ambient creatures only pop up 5 meters in front of you). If we add upon that, lightning and potentially antialiasing seem to have taken a hit since the first trailers for Wii U back in 2014. Then there is the issue of weird hazing. And finally there is the potential last low point when Cemu (Wii U emulator) releases an HD update Wii U version of BotW in maybe half a year, making it and not the Switch version the definitive one, screwing over those who invested into the Switch and not e. g. just bought the Wii U version and dumped it for Cemu or straight out pirated it. This is no problem if you will never have access to a gaming pc, but especially the folks who buy Nintendo products as an extension for their gaming pc game library will take a hit from this. Ofc, someone could argue that you are in the moral right to download a dumped Wii U version if you purchased the Switch version, but pirating is pirating and can ruin your life when you get litigated, so don't do it (ofc this whole discussion does not matter for countries in which dumping/modding itself is illegal, but that's not the case for all countries). And in case you own a Wii U and bought the Switch version for its upgrades (better sounds for example), you would have to buy the Wii U version again for dumping purposes. Finally, there is the possebility for the Wii U version to actually look better than the Switch one in regard to lightning, hazing and blooming if you follow the various comparison videos, but we can't be sure as those comparisons for the most part compare different builds of the game. However, if the Wii U version is actually superior in regards to graphics (without Cemu modding), it definitely does not look so great for the Switch as far as the hardware goes. Absolutely finally (I know, this seems to has no end), a 30 fps lock and even then frame drops on tv mode is very scary for the Switch's power.

• 720p/900p/1080p is already outdated or on the low-end, this will especially show when the new Xbox and PS will release with 4k, which can happen as early as around next E3.

• others have found harsher words: "No. Fuck no. No you're not going to be able to fit Titanfall on it. That's the same Zelda from the Wii U [laughs]." (Respawn Entertainment senior designer Mohammad Alavi)

• another example: https://twitter.com/DuvalMagic/status/820774822691176449?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

• the Switch being marketed with quite old games likes Skyrim

• Even if you bring up the argument of the Switch being a handheld, you can't deny that Nintendo isn't really marketing it as one but a true hybrid, so these points stay valid (especially when the dock function heavily hinders the mobile charging as explained in point 1).

• no Pascal → not on the high-end of mobile gpu power

.5. pricing

• The Switch launches around 50 € pricier than the Nintendo 3DS on launch and we all know how Nintendo had to lower the price drastically. The possebility of getting screwed over by buying early is real.

• Accessories like pro controller and extra joy-cons are not cheap, more like the opposite.

• 70 € for one AAA game

• artificial scarcity

.6. outdated and contradictory behaviour by Nintendo for the Switch

• charge for online play ↔ deny global voice chat because kids

• introduce a comprehensive parental control system ↔ deny global voice chat because ???

• introduce Nintendo-Accounts ↔ 32 GB internal storage

• require smartphones for voice chat/There seems to be no Bluetooth headset support, at least at release.

.7. not building upon established gaming controls

• Instead of trying to build upon the GC controller design they introduce movement controls once again and a pro controller that seems to be worse than a years old GC controller in regard to handling.

• Joy-Cons are designed by necessity (see also point 3).

.8. Miscellaneous

• Not all USB-C-chargers seem to be suited for the Switch.

• Possebility of the kickstand being to frail to hold the Switch in tabletop outside of perfect underfloor conditions, however it is designed nicely to not break itself.

Hopefully I did not forget something.

Finally, please don't just downvote because you preordered a Switch and just want to blend out the critics as a whole. I understand that some points may be no valid critics for you, but I want to remind you that some points are always subjective and I could have been harsher. If I would have endless money I would just buy a Switch with a Pro controller and tabletop charge dock for BotW and enjoy it, then buy a Wii U and Wii U version of BotW for Cemu and a new gpu for my pc. If there wouldn't be all these cons I could just buy a Switch and BotW and be done with it.

I may still buy a Switch on Friday (my local Media Markt still has enough of them), but I will definitely not feel like "this was a good investment" and more like "I had to do this because of BotW at release in the then definitive version.".

Discuss.

Submitted by needUpvotesToPost | #Specialdealer Special Offer Online Shopping Store 2016